Spirit Man
by MendaciousMinx
Summary: When the chief's son, Ungoya, feels that life isn't lively enough, Roshan discloses the story of his own childhood and how he came by the name Beast Heart.


A/N: I don't know if this has been done, but I had to wonder what Roshan's life was going to be like after Ice Age left off. Certainly not normal. This is my take.

* * *

Ungoya flicked a fishbone lazily across the ground. There had been nothing for him to do in the camp for weeks, and his mother would not yet allow him out on the great hunts participated in by the men of the tribe. He was the only boy left now, waiting for the men to come home, sitting around with the women and girls. 

"I wish Mother would see that I am not too young," he complained to himself. "I am nearly a man now. Men hunt! It is what we do!"

"Not all men hunt," said a soft voice behind him. Ungoya turned to see Roshan Beast Heart standing there, smiling down at him. The young man's face was soft but slender, a rarity among their people, and his eyes were kind. He never went hunting with the men of the tribe, though he was skilled enough. Some said he had tiger in him.

"It is different for you," Ungoya griped. "You are a rokkoy, a spirit man. I am the chief's son."

"I was once the chief's son too, you know, before my father died." Roshan sat next to him, folding his hands in his lap.

"Really?" Ungoya gasped, intrigued now. "Why are you not our chief, then?"

Roshan's laugh was low and rumbling, like a mammoth's growl. "I declined the position. I gave it to your father, who was older and wiser."

"Are you not wise?"

"Wisdom comes in many forms, little chief. Your father is wise in the way of hunting, providing, and leading. I am wise in the way of spirit, heart, and nature." Roshan leaned back against a tall stone.

Ungoya snorted. "Doesn't seem like a very useful way to be wise to me." He clapped a hand over his mouth. "Forgive me, it was not my—"

The rokkoy laughed again. "Do not apologize, little chief. You make a valid point." He turned his dark, sparkling eyes on the boy. "Do you know why I am called Beast Heart?"

Ungoya shook his head. "I have asked, but no one will say. My mother tells me that to speak of it is to anger the Great Animal Spirits."

Roshan shook his head. "Your mother is a wise woman, but she is wrong in this. The Great Animal Spirits care not what we speak of, only the actions we take on our words." He lifted the fishbone and rolled it between his fingers. "Shall I tell you my story?"

"Yes, rokkoy, please!" Ungoya loved stories, and leaned close to listen.

"Long ago," said Roshan, waving the bone gently in the air as though weaving a spell, "When I was an infant, still too small to walk, saber-toothed tigers attacked our tribe. This you may have heard from the elders who fought them. My father had invoked their wrath by slaughtering half of their pack, and they sought revenge through me. One of the tigers chased my mother, who held me, out of the camp."

"What happened to her?" squealed Ungoya, already enraptured by the story.

Roshan smiled. "I do not know. My father saw this and no more, and so was able to tell me nothing further. I have vague recollections, as though they were dreams. A mammoth's trunk wrapped around me, a sloth rocking me to sleep. These animals—or spirits, as the tribe would have you believe—cared for me. They kept me from harm and returned me to my father. He remembers this.

"Over a rise came the greatest mammoth upon which he had laid eyes, followed by a demure and silent sloth. The mammoth raised its trunk, as though to strike my father. He held his spear ready, but the great beast snatched it from him and threw it aside as though it had been a twig. It reached up onto its back and held aloft the infant my father had thought dead—me. It set me down, and for the fist time my father saw me walk. He took me into his arms, and in his mind he thanked the Great Animal Spirits for returning his child."

"Did the mammoth leave?"

"Not yet. My father looked into the mammoth's eyes, and did not see a beast. He saw another father, another chief. He allowed me to walk back to the beasts, where he says I embraced the sloth and mammoth before returning. He told me that I was not just a charge to these animals, but a child as well. He said he could see it in the mammoth's eyes, and the sloth's. He gave to the mammoth an ivory-beaded necklace, as an exchange, for he said that parts of their hearts had gone with me, and so I am Roshan Beast Heart."

"Wow…" Ungoya murmured, sitting back on his haunches. "What about the tigers? Did they give up their vengeance?"

"The mammoth and sloth are not my only memories. I remember also a tiger, kind and loving. I remember him most vividly of all. He fought other tigers, fought for me and for the mammoth and for the sloth. He almost died to save us."

"Surely not!" exclaimed Ungoya, brow drawn in a frown. "Surely you imagined it!"

"I have not finished my tale yet, little chief," Roshan said quietly. "There is one more piece to my puzzle. Many nights later, when my father returned home from a hunt, he found my nurse asleep outside our tent. When he looked inside it was to see a saber-toothed tiger curled around my sleeping form, keeping me warm. He raised his spear to defend his son, but the tiger raised its head to gaze at him and he saw in its eyes the same look he had received from the mammoth and the sloth. My father stayed his hand. The tiger slid past him, out of the tent, and turned again to gaze at him. Quickly, quietly, it went down on its knee. It lowered its head, and my father knew it was an apology. Then the tiger was gone, as though the night had swallowed it up."

"Ungoya!" called a woman from camp. "Ungoya, it is time for supper! Your father is home!"

Ungoya leapt to his feet, and turned quickly to Roshan. "I must depart. Yours is a most strange story, but I am glad to have heard it."

"It was my pleasure to tell," Roshan replied, and nodded slowly. "Go to your mother now. Your family is waiting."

Ungoya obeyed.

It was a long time before Ungoya thought again of Roshan's story. It happened one day, when he was out hunting. He had cornered a saber-toothed tiger, all on his own, while the others were hunting smaller game. As he was about to strike the final blow, he realized something very important—the tiger was not fighting back.

"What is wrong with you, beast?" he asked carefully, though he knew he would get no response. "Are you ill?"

The tiger simply gazed at him sadly, lowering its head in submission. Realization struck.

"You are Roshan's tiger, aren't you? You were one of his beast-fathers!"

Ungoya stepped back slowly, letting the animal slip past him. When he turned around he saw that it was gazing back at him from the top of a nearby hill, accompanied by two others. One was a sloth with sleepy eyes and a long swan-neck. The other was a great mammoth, with an ivory-beaded necklace hung from one tusk.

Ungoya bowed low, and when he rose they were gone.

* * *

A/N: Hope you enjoyed. Reviews are appreciated. 


End file.
